


Darkness, My Old Friend

by WotanAnubis



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Goth Max
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2018-04-02 00:23:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4040251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WotanAnubis/pseuds/WotanAnubis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Max and Chloe have both changed after five years apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darkness, My Old Friend

**Author's Note:**

> Since Life is Strange has now officially gone full alternate universe on us, I feel comfortable writing a little something about some timeline where things have gone, perhaps, a little differently.

Chloe felt awkward walking through the Blackwell girls dormitory. It had been a while since she'd felt awkward. Most of the time she just felt angry, frustrated and betrayed, so, really, feeling a bit awkward should've been a relief. It wasn't.

Max walked in front of her, though Chloe couldn't shake the feeling she was actually gliding along the floor rather than doing anything so mundane as walking. Meeting her again after five years had been a shock. Chloe hadn't even recognised her at first. She thought she'd changed, but blue hair and punk shirts was nothing compared to what Max had gone through.

Max, not exactly a sun worshiper to begin with, had gone to great lengths to make herself look even paler. She'd dyed her hair black, wore thick black eyeliner and a lot of black lipstick. The monochrome look was only enhanced by her clothes - she wore a studded black collar and lot of silver and stainless steel necklaces. One of them held a pentagram, because of course it fucking did, but there was also a deer and, for some reason, a tree among the tangle.

And she wore a dress. Actually, dress wasn't the right word. Gown might work. It was simply voluminous, elegant and edged with lace. And under it, Max wore a pair of heavy black boots with more buckles than any sane person could possibly want or need.

Before she'd left for Seattle, Max hadn't even known what a bodice was. And, actually, Chloe still wasn't 100% on that, but she was pretty fucking sure Max knew by now.

"Well, here we are."

And suddenly she was just Max again. The Max Chloe had known. Suddenly, with a few happy-sounding words, the morbid romantic/possible vampire was back to being the Max she'd known. Thought she might still know.

Max invitingly held open the door for her and Chloe walked past her, trying not to feel like the fly coming into the spider's lair. Then she actually saw what Max had done to her room and, yeah, fly in the spider's lair.

The walls were white, which was something of a comfort. There were a lot of candles that probably looked very romantic during quiet evenings. A couple of roses here and there. A string of soft lights hung from the ceiling and along the wall, which weren't particularly threatening. The wall itself was covered in polaroids. They were all pure Max. A lot of them were actually of Max at that. There were a lot of smiling people and pretty nature shots. And quite a few ornate crypts and cemetery statues. Beautifully shot, sure, but... yeah.

"Want something to drink?" Max asked, gliding past her. "I've got... well, I've got soda."

"I'm good, thanks," Chloe said, sounding tough out of habit rather than sincerity.

"OK. Let me know if you change your mind," Max said, sitting down on her bed (covered, of course, with black sheets) with more ease than Chloe had thought possible in that gown.

Chloe desperately looked around, but short of staring at a switched off laptop there didn't seem to be anywhere safe to look. A rope of bird skulls and feathers hung around her mirror. Her tiny bookcase also had an actual (though probably fake) human skull sitting on one of its shelves. Up 'till now, Chloe had been all for skulls as, like, decoration on T-shirts and shit. Seeing such a lot of them in actual 3D kind of dampened her enthusiasm for them.

"Uhm... would you like some music?" Max asked.

"Sure," Chloe said, realising her mistake too late.

Heavy violins filled the air, accompanied by a female voice that sometimes seemed to sing, sometimes seemed to whisper intensely. It was, Chloe had to admit, kind of nice, in a New Max kind of way, but in this decor it sounded sinister.

Chloe wandered over to Max's closet, and, much to her relief, found it mostly full of ordinary shirts and pants, with a few dresses that weren't nearly as ornate as the one she was wearing now. They were all black, of course, except for a couple that were a deep, bloody red.

"Nice to see you still got..." Chloe started, and stopped when she realised where that sentence was going to end.

"Normal clothes?" Max said, amused.

"I was gonna say practical."

"Sure you were. But you're not wrong. Much as I love this dress, I can really only justify wearing it for special occasions."

"So," Chloe said, smirking. "This is a special occasion, huh?"

"Of course it is."

Max rose and glided over her. She smiled in a way that upgraded her from possible vampire to probable vampire.

"Want to dance?" she asked.

Chloe nodded mutely. Max gently took her hands and guided her along with the violins. There wasn't a lot of room in Max' tiny dorm, but she made the most of what little they had.

"The fuck happened to you in Seattle?" Chloe asked.

Max giggled. "I guess you could say I found myself."

"And who are you, Max Caulfield?"

"A suffering artist, obviously."

"Yeah, right."

Chloe sighed and leaned into Max. She would've liked to rest her head on her shoulder, but that would've required Max to wear some truly epic platforms. Still, being here with her, drifting through violins, surrounded by death, she felt... calm. Maybe even serene.

"I think I could get used to this," Chloe said.

"I'm glad," Max said. "I want you to feel welcome here."

"And nothing says 'welcome' like bird skulls, right?"

"I could take them down, if you want."

"Nah, leave 'em," said Chloe. "They're you, right? Nothing wrong with that."

Max smiled and Chloe found herself smiling back.

They danced on when the dreaming violins turned into screaming guitars and then kept dancing until the music went out. They only stopped when it became too dark to see and the threat of them stumbling into some piece of furniture or knocking something over became very real.

They retired to the bed, Max lying next to Chloe, Chloe lying on top of Max' dress. The moon shone in through the window. It should've been a full moon, but the weather had no sense of poetic necessity and so the moon was instead a rather bulging not-quite-half.

"So glad you're back," Chloe said, instead of what she actually wanted to say and didn't quite dare.

A pale hand with nails painted black caressed her chin. But instead of fulfilling the urgent fantasies rapidly crowding Chloe's head, Max merely answered.

"So glad to be back."


End file.
